Grandpa

An interactive animation that dives into an imagination of the artist's Grandpa's life and their shared memories through security cameras.

DATE

2023

CONTEXT

Created in the Fall 2023 Interactive Animation (Desma 155), taught by Jenna Caravello

MEDIUM

Unity

PEOPLE

Jenny Dong  :  Game Design, Concept, Visuals, and Programming

Among my grandparents’ generation, Grandpa is the only one who is still alive. Grandpa can’t speak Mandarin. Can he understand? He should be able to. Because I can’t speak their dialect, I always talk to him in Mandarin. But it’s also possible that it’s because I will only say the simplest words to him. Sometimes I would feel a hint of awkwardness. Grandpa didn’t want to move to Shanghai, so my mom set up a set of security cameras at his house in case of emergencies. Interestingly, for the first time in all these years, I finally get a chance to see Grandpa regularly—literally “see.”

Grandpa speculates on developer Jenny Dong’s grandfathers life using her own imagination of their shared memories through the security cameras. What is real and what is not? It doesn’t really matter. Staring is a unique act: to see something is to fill your whole life with it, even for a moment—”I knew that dusk was passing and night was falling from the sky. I saw the vast land bare its strong breast, a gesture of calling, as women call their children, and the land beckons the night to come.”

Click around! And maybe drag.